1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing device for acquiring document data from electronic paper which displays and retains a document image without power supply, and particularly to a technique which allows acquisition of data appended on the surface of the electronic paper in handwriting, or the like, by means of associating the data with the document.
2. Description of the Related Art
Documents have been created, edited, and browsed in various forms of electronic data, such as images or texts, with the use of a personal computer, or the like.
Such a document in a form of electronic data is generally displayed on a display screen of the personal computer, or printed on a sheet of paper (hereinafter called a “paper sheet”), which is one type of paper medium, so as to be browsed by a user.
In recent years, electronic paper has been developed as a medium for browsing a document, which can take the place of a paper medium. The electronic paper is capable of displaying and retaining a document image on a display section without power supply, and is paper-thin, flexible, and portable as if it were paper.
The electronic paper is a device having a display section for displaying and retaining a document image without power supply. The electronic paper can be broadly categorized, in terms of the write method by which the document image is written into the display section, into a self-write-type electronic paper which has a function of writing the document image into the display section by itself on the basis of document electronic data, and a photo-write-type electronic paper which retains a projected document image in the display section.
Such electronic paper differs from paper sheet in that the electronic paper is capable of erasing and overwriting the document image displayed and retained in the display section, and updating the document image, thereby allowing repeated reuse. Accordingly, also from the viewpoint of saving paper resources, growth in the use of the electronic paper has been desired.
Additionally, when the electronic paper is provided with a processing section having a communication function or a memory function as well as the display section, the electronic paper allows not only display and retention of the document image in the display section, but also storage of electronic data or identification data (document ID) of a document, and transmission/receipt of the data to and from the outside information processing device.